Page 6

“I wasn’t going to rob your bar,” I assured him.

“It would be a pretty poor plan when the place is teeming with construction work. You looking for someone? Or not looking for someone?”

I glanced across the street, wondering how long I had to pull myself together before Perry emerged.

When I glanced back at the guy, his head cocked to the side. “You need help with something?”

Could I ask him?

Would it be too much to ask of a stranger?

But it was just handing someone paperwork, right? It wasn’t like Perry was going to get physical with him. Not someone as big and bulky as this guy, anyway.

“Do you?” he pressed when I said nothing, just stared at him.

“Could you… could you maybe give this folder to the man in a suit when he comes out of that building across the street?”

He glanced down at the folder, then up at me, before reaching for it.

“I can do that.”

“You don’t have—”

But he was already walking across the street with a lazy but purposeful gait. And my chickenshit self ran and ducked behind the dumpster.

I didn’t even peek around the corner. Didn’t try to see or hear what words were exchanged. Not that I could hear anything over the buzzing in my ears, anyway.

So I just crouched down and focused on trying not to have a heart attack.

“It’s done.”

I startled, angling my head back to look up at the man, his tall frame casting me in shadow.

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was nothing.”

Nothing.

Yet my body was still releasing adrenaline like I was being chased by a lion.

“He took it?”

“He didn’t exactly have a choice.”

“Did he leave?”

He leaned back, glancing over. “He’s on the phone yelling at someone.”

His lawyer, I imagined.

He could argue with them for hours, if past conversations were anything to go by.

“You look like you could use a drink.”

I glanced at the bar, knowing it was probably not the safest thing to go into an establishment closed for construction with a man I didn’t know from Adam.

But, somehow, that was safer than walking past my angry husband to get to my car.